Regarding Opera Mini and the App Store — [Nov. 2: Addendum regarding iPhone SDK guideline 3.3.2 appended at end.] — I've done some digging on this “Opera Mini was rejected from the App Store” story, and the truth appears to be very different than what has been reported and assumed.

How Can You Be So Sure about Azure? — [Editor's note: This commentary derives from my comment response added to the aforementioned post.] — During Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference I posted first-take analysis “Azure: Windows Becomes the Web,” which I followed up with “Microsoft's Server Stack Gets Higher.”

Windows 7 pre-beta hits BitTorrent — The pre-beta version of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system released to developers at the Professional Developers Conference has already made it onto prominent BitTorrent sites, where thousands of enthusiasts around the world are currently downloading it.

The Pirate Bay Tops 20 Million Peers — The Pirate Bay has reached yet another milestone. Today, they track more than 20 million unique peers for the first time since the site was launched. It is estimated that the Pirate Bay tracks more than half of all BitTorrent users at any given point in time.

Election Day 2008: The Best Blogs and Social Media Resources — Update 1 Nov 2008: We've added several links. Thanks to Jackie Sheeler for making the first suggestion. Feel free to add more in the comments! — The 2008 US presidential election will be over in about 100 hours (unless Florida can't make up its mind again).

Salesforce.com CEO's head is still in a ‘cloud’ — Despite the economic downturn, Salesforce.com in San Francisco is one company that's still growing. — Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff co-founded Salesforce.com in an apartment in San Francisco in 1999 at the height of the dot-com bubble …

Windows 7 hands on - Impressive at every turn — With the Microsoft PDC recently wrapping up, excitement has been building for Windows 7. I wonder, will it be able to live up to the hype? There's only one way to find out: install it and see for myself. This is by no means a complete analysis …

Internet collaboration still in infancy: Wikipedia founder — LONDON (AFP) — The age of public collaboration over the Internet is still only in its infancy, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told AFP in an interview. — The 42-year-old web guru, in an effort to show Wikipedia's impact thus far …

DirectTV May Enter Online TV War With “Web On Demand” Service — We've received a couple of anonymous tips that DirectTV, a $24 billion satellite TV provider, may be entering the online TV wars with a new site called DirectTV Web On Demand. The site would compete with startups like Hulu, Joost, Fancast, Sling.com, etc.

Is Revver On The Fritz? — We've been getting a lot of tips from people who have been having problems reaching the Revver website lately, getting videos uploaded or playing the ones already hosted on the platform. We haven't paid much attention to them so far, because every time we check …